Transition Summer

I am amazed (and a little horrified) that it has been over three months since I returned from Guatemala.  I have been telling people that I 'just' returned from Guatemala and I recently became painfully aware that, in fact, I have now been back over half as many month as I was actually there!!!  With that awareness surfaced the question of why the 5 months there seemed so much more significant than the 3 months back, not to mention - where did those three months go, exactly????

Here's what I've come up with:  My experience in Guatemala was life-changing. I know that sounds trite, but in ways I'm still trying to understand and integrate, my fundamental experience of being alive in this world is different.  I am both humbled and grateful for all that I have, all that I have access to, and all that is possible in my life.  I am aware, in a visceral way (that before was only intellectual) of my privilege as a Canadian, especially a Caucasian, English-speaking, educated, Canadian.

By contrast, my summer has been a return to my family home, to a city I never planned to live in again, and the big question mark of "What's next???"  It has been the hurry-up-and-wait of job search, trying to get clear on where I wanted to focus that search, ever balancing the question of Internal vs. External consultant.  Exploring my clear preference for independence and the freedom of freelance consulting, with the financial security and the built-in team of an internal consulting job. 

It has also been a summer of intense self-discovery and growth in ways that are different from my travels, often uncomfortable, and ultimately incredibly valuable.  I am living with family again, interacting with my parents and sister at an ongoing level of proximity that I haven't experienced in close to ten years.  It is both joyous and challenging.  It brings out both the best and the worst in each of those relationships.  What is most profound for me is experiencing myself as the witness as old 'stuff' comes up - and experiencing myself as having choice in how things unfold.  I am rediscovering myself in relationship with my family, and it is liberating.

Amidst the job search and personal work of family relationships, I'm also dancing and creating hoopla.  It has been an interesting process trying to decide how serious to get about my hoop-making business. In a city that's still remarkably blue-collar, hard-rock, old school conservative, it has been very rewarding to share my hoops and my Kundalini Dance practice.  Edges are being stretched all over the place and it's beautiful. 

I still don't know where it's all going, but I know that somehow I will eventually find a way to bring all these disparate parts of myself together. I have a hunch the next few months are going to be powerfully interesting.